Kingston's Johnston House gets a modern makeover

Friday

Dec 7, 2012 at 2:00 AMDec 7, 2012 at 12:11 PM

It was almost a dare. When top interior designer Brian McCarthy was asked at a holiday party last year to breathe life into the Fred J. Johnston House antiques collection, he had one year to gather a team and answer one designer's question: "Once you've seen it, why go back?"

Deborah Medenbach

It was almost a dare. When top interior designer Brian McCarthy was asked at a holiday party last year to breathe life into the Fred J. Johnston House antiques collection, he had one year to gather a team and answer one designer's question: "Once you've seen it, why go back?"

McCarthy was the designer that the Frick Collection in Manhattan entrusted with renovating its staid patron's tea room. Surely he could find the pulse of the 1812 Johnston House's period interiors.

"There's a story that one day Fred's sister came home and wanted to go up to bed, only to find that he'd sold it that day," said Friends of Historic Kingston President Haynes Llewellyn. Furniture flowed steadily through the rooms, and clients could buy a single object or a whole room arrangement. The spaces served as changeable interior design classrooms until Johnston's death in 1993 stilled the objects in place. McCarthy's first task for the house, a museum since 1997, was editing.

"We've taken at least half of the furniture out. You can heighten the creativity by getting distractions out of the way," McCarthy said.

His team of room designers, who've also donated their services for the project, included David Cavallaro and Dan Giessinger of Shadow Lawn in High Falls.

"We're working with Brian to make one vision for the house," Giessinger said. "What I'm excited about is that we can go into the collection and it's at our discretion what to use."

The reconfigured 18th-century antiques are mixed with the original artwork of contemporary Kingston artists Nancy Graves and Judy Pfaff.

"Johnston demonstrated that you could live comfortably in a house surrounded by antiques," Llewellyn said. "He would blend in contemporary pieces to take the harder wear and modern art to bring fresh energy."

This is the first time since the museum opened that the collection has been reworked by top designers and is expected to attract a large audience through the holiday season. The showroom gallery has been transformed with holiday table arrangements decorated by interior design and antique dealers chosen by Friends of Historic Kingston.

"It's been a pure joy," McCarthy said. "I hope people will see how this gives a new lease on life through the holidays at this house."